Such Great Heights

With the new TD Towers project, Bostonâ€™s skyline gets a controversial makeover.

The West Endâ€”once a lively mixed-use neighborhood of immigrants, now a catchall for bigÂ government and big sportsâ€”was built low and wide. But with Tom Meninoâ€™s last-minuteÂ approval of a $1 billion, 45-story complex to rise above the TD Garden, one of the cityâ€™s last mid-rise frontiers has been breached. Not everyone is thrilled with this vertical progress; members of theÂ Boston Garden Impact Advisory Group, for instance, have argued that the neighborhoodâ€™s streets were not designed to withstand the increased traffic, and that the project opens the door to many more like it, which would turn the West End into another skyscraper orchard. Itâ€™s not hard to see where theyâ€™re coming from. When you compare the project with towers elsewhere in Boston, it fits right in. But as you can see above, it will dwarf its neighbors in the West End.